Abstract : The buckling of cylindrical panels under non uniform axial compression is investigated. Various load distributions are considered including bending and concentrated load. Along the straight edges two types of boundary conditions are examined: SS3 and SS4. Along the curved edges only the classical SS3 boundary condition is considered. The analysis is based on Donnell's equations and the standard Galerkin procedure. Results show that the critical stress depends strongly on the load distribution and on the geometric parameter K*. The critical stress increases as K* decreases and as the load distribution becomes sharper. For K* approaching infinity the critical stress approaches asymptotically the value corresponding to the critical stress in uniform axial compression. No significant difference is found between the boundary conditions SS3 and SS4, the latter yielding slightly higher critical stresses. (Author)